Eat Humble Pie

A genuine piece of medieval cooking hiding behind a pun. The original dish was "umble pie," made from the "umbles," the edible innards, particularly of deer, that were considered low-status food fit mainly for servants and huntsmen, while the lord of the manor ate the prized venison meat itself. "Umble" comes from the Old French "nombles," meaning deer's innards. Because the "h" in "humble" wasn't originally pronounced, "umble pie" and "humble pie" sounded identical, and English speakers gradually merged the two, since eating the servants' offal pie while your betters ate well already carried an obvious sting of social humiliation. "Umble pie" is recorded from the 1640s; the modern "humble pie" spelling and its figurative sense of forced apology followed by 1830.